GE Energy has announced that it has introduced taller towers for its onshore wind turbine product line, which “enable higher annual energy production (AEP) and increase the number of potential wind sites”. The towers initially will be offered for GE’s 2.5-MW series including the new 2.75-103 wind turbine. The taller towers are available with hub heights in excess of 130 meters.
“We continuously strive to increase value for our customers. The taller tower, which will also be available for our new 2.75-103, is the next step in our evolutionary product portfolio,” said Stephan Ritter, general manager of GE Renewable Energy Europe. “With taller towers, more sites become attractive wind farm locations. The increased height also offers more customer value through higher winds and a reduction in the impact of turbulence resulting in higher annual energy production.”
The taller tower will have a robust hybrid pre-cast concrete and tubular steel design. This construction offers an optimal balance between customer value and advanced technology while reducing logistical challenges. The new tower is an especially good fit for densely forested areas and hillside locations that are prone to high turbulence intensity.
GE Energy says that initial key markets for the new, taller wind turbine towers will be Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Romania and Canada.
Offshore’s where it’s at
Nordex meanwhile has firmly turned its sights to the offshore wind market and took the opportunity this week to present its new six-MW offshore wind turbine at the Wind 2011 trade fair in Hannover (Germany).
"Our strategy is being driven by the development of a competitive product. For this purpose, we are acting on the trend towards third-generation wind turbines, which are characterized by a substantially greater nominal output and lower specific weights. Only in this way is it possible for a large market of sufficient relevance to emerge in the medium term", says Thomas Richterich, Chief Executive Officer of Nordex SE.
Experts assume that the offshore market will enter its first phase of maturity from 2015 onwards with annual sales volumes of more than five gigawatts, which Richterich says his company has been preparing for over the last two years. It has hired an experienced team of experts in its new business unit Nordex Offshore GmbH, which covers the complete offshore value chain.
The preliminary result is the N150/6000, which has been developed specially for offshore use. With a rotor diameter of 150 metres, it has an installed nominal output of six megawatts, making it “one of the largest and most efficient in the offshore market”. The specific weight of the tower head has been kept low thanks to the use of a new kind of direct drive. This impacts not only the costs but also the loads to which the entire system is exposed.
"Out at sea in particular, we must do everything we can to optimise the technical reliability of the turbine. With cost structures differing to those in the onshore market, we are able to implement a more complex drive system, namely a direct drive", explains Thomas Karst, CEO of the Offshore division. However, a special and substantially lighter version is to be used - a direct drive with a permanent magnet generator and a full power converter.
“Thanks to the modular system design, assembly and servicing at sea are possible with the systems already available today. If necessary, components can be replaced simply, quickly and without dismantling the rotor,” explains Nordex. A condition monitoring system facilitates pre-emptive maintenance of critical parts, while Nordex can fit out the N150/6000 with a helicopter platform if requested by the customer.
Nordex has participated in a reference project in the German part of the Baltic Sea to expedite market access. Up to 70 N150/6000 wind turbines are to be installed here from 2014/15 onwards. "We are able to extend the preliminary experience which we gained with smaller turbines within a relatively short space of time and offer our customers a mature product," Richerich ends.
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